Useful Item Number Four
by tsutsuji
Summary: Lina was happy to see Xelloss alive again after that battle with Shabranigdo, even if she did show it by hitting him with a Fireball. Xelloss intended to show her just how 'useful' he could be. LinaXelloss romancy-fluff. Written for SlayersAdult kinkfest.


Title: Useful Item Number Four

Author: Tsutsuji

Fandom: Slayers

Pairing: Lina x Xelloss

Rating: Teen

Warnings: none. (sorry.) Also sorry for the painfully obvious title.

Word count: around 1300.

For the SlayersAdult Kinkfest prompt _Xellos/Lina: spooning - "I'll always stay with you and look after you from behind." (Secret, Somebody's Message) _XelLina mostly-fluff.

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She didn't have a chance to think about it at the time, but Lina had been more impressed than she'd shown when Xelloss threw himself in front of a direct blast from Shabranigdo to protect her, and she was more than a little pleased that he was finally impressed with her abilities as a sorcerer after the battle was over and won. She'd also been a lot more worried about him getting most of his body blasted away in that battle than she cared to admit.

Naturally, the first thing she did when he eventually appeared in front of her alive and whole again was to toss a Fireball right in his face.

"You stupid mazoku! What were you thinking, being so careless?" she yelled at him, or at the cloud of smoke where he'd just been standing. "You're not allowed to get yourself killed, Xelloss, even if you've been ordered to. You're _my_ Useful Item Number Four, remember!"

She turned away, fists clenched at her sides.

"Not that it matters to you if you are," she added under her breath.

He was supposed to be too busy sizzling to hear that part, but it turned out that he did. He was standing right behind her.

"Only number four, still, Lina-san?" he pouted. He put his arms around her from behind before she could turn around. "How can I get to be Useful Item Number One?"

Lina was startled, not so much by him appearing where least expected - that was to be expected of Xelloss - as by the way he spoke, and then by her own reaction to having him pull her back against his chest. Well, maybe her reaction to that wasn't such a surprise, either. She swallowed hard and tried to hide it by glaring back at him over her shoulder.

"Why on earth would you want to be?" she asked skeptically.

"That's simple," he said.

He held her gaze, and it took her a second to realize how shocking that was, or should be. She tried to remind herself to be alarmed - caught by a mazoku! - but all of her instincts were definitely not screaming of danger. Not that kind of danger, anyway. Only the kind that came from having him pressed up against her back from knees to neck, his arms firmly around her, his hand resting over her heart. Warmth like a human breath whispered on her cheek, his mouth close to her ear.

If he were any other mazoku, she'd be dead to let herself get caught like this. Xelloss could just be hiding his mazoku bloodlust, of course, but she could tell that he wasn't because she could still sense his power clearly, the aura of the magic that he was made of. Which could only mean he intended her to feel it. As if he wasn't damned attractive enough already, he must know she couldn't resist that.

"I want to because you're Lina," he said.

She tried not to swallow hard again, at least not so obviously this time.

"What kind of reason is that for a mazoku?" she quipped.

"I think it's a perfectly good one!" he answered, smiling over her shoulder with that all-too-charming smile of his.

She tried one more time to resist this, tried to talk herself out of letting him hold her like this for even one second longer, but she failed completely. Lina Inverse was not given to fatalistic notions, but she was pretty certain she and Xelloss had been heading for this moment for a long time. That was no reason to make it easy for him, though.

"That's just because I'm useful to _you_," she said, and twisted out of his arms. She was surprised, and more than a little disappointed, when he let her go. Except that he didn't quite; he caught her by the wrist so that she pivoted around and ended up facing him.

Xelloss' head was down, hiding his eyes, but she knew he was sensing her; she could feel it. It was already too late to shield herself and her feelings from him, anyway. With his fingers around her wrist, her racing pulse would have given her away even if he'd been human. He wasn't, though, and that was half the point.

"You are useful to the mazoku, I won't deny that," he said quietly.

He slowly raised his head. Lina braced herself, but there was no dangerous smile, no goofy grin, no deadly gleam in his violet eyes. There was only an odd little smile, almost bashful, that she was suddenly certain no one had ever seen on his face before.

"That's not why I will continue to follow you," he said, "and to watch over you."

He had raised his hand before she realized it, and touched her cheek with a forefinger. She barely managed not to let her eyes close, just to feel his touch.

Her face felt embarrassingly hot. She frowned at him to hide how flustered she was, not that she could fool him, but it wouldn't be like her not to try.

"I don't need you looking after me, Xelloss," she growled.

"I know that, better than most, Lina-san!" he answered gravely, but then the goofy grin appeared. That made it all just a little easier.

"And I don't like the idea of you looking over my shoulder all the time, either," she added.

He pulled back a little, cocking his head to look at her doubtfully.

"Lina-san!" he pouted. "Does that mean you're going to keep lobbing Fireballs at me if I follow you?"

She thought he really might be going to back off. Which was good; it meant that her point was taken.

"No," she said. She pulled back on the wrist that he still held, tugging him closer again, and grinned into his startled face. "That just means you need to stay right in front of me," she added, lifting her face closer to his, "where I can see you!"

"Oh?" he said, clearly puzzled.

Except maybe not as puzzled as he looked, because when she rose up on her toes to kiss him, he leaned down to meet her.

His kiss was dizzying, and as she found out a little later, so were a number of other things he did. She'd long suspected they might be, and unfortunately for any hope of a calm and ordinary life, she'd been right.

She'd never wanted a calm and ordinary life anyway.

"Keep that up, Xelloss," she said when she'd recovered her breath enough to speak, quite a while later, "and you'll definitely be Useful Item Number One in no time."

He'd even had the good grace to act as if she'd gotten him all out of breath as well. The aura of pure magic still radiated from within him, enticing her senses, but his skin as he lay alongside her was warm and slightly damp, as if he'd been sweating with the effort to prove himself most useful. And his mouth was... well, Lina was already certain only Chaos Words would adequately describe what Xelloss could do with his mouth.

"In that case, I will definitely do my best from now on, Lina-san!" he said cheerfully.

Then he went right back to showing her just how useful he intended to be.

He couldn't travel with her all the time, of course, even after that, and when he did, he still had an annoying tendency to come up behind her and peer over her shoulder. That gave her plenty of target practice throwing Fireballs at him, so she had to admit he was pretty useful that way, too.

~ the end ~

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_Comments? Lemme know what you think, 'kay? *smiles*_


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